


The Scarf

by GhostNox181



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Kid!Lock, M/M, The Scarf, because i had to, to presentday!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostNox181/pseuds/GhostNox181
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason Sherlock wears that scarf all the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scarf

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this has been done (many times), but I suddenly got motivated to write this and so here it is. A cute little fic. Enjoy!

“Why do you wear that scarf all the time? I mean, I’d understand if it was different scarves, but it’s always that same one.”

 

Sherlock pauses in his movements, his hands still pulling his familiar blue scarf around his neck as he always does before he runs out the door to a case. It is a reasonable question, one he is honestly surprised more people haven’t asked him. Though, he surmises, most people aren’t as caring as John. Or spend enough time with Sherlock to notice.

 

Not many people want to spend time with him at all.

 

As he finishes wrapping the scarf about his neck, he thinks back to the day he got the scarf. Just like every other day of his life, he remembers it with crystal clarity. Even so, this day is perhaps the closest Sherlock has to a favorite memory.

 

 

~}-{~

 

 

It was raining. 

 

A simple observation, a silly one. It was raining, and he was sitting in a park under a tree soaking wet. Of course he would know if it was raining.

 

He couldn’t remember why he was in the park. He had already deleted it from his head. All he remembered was a fight, some screaming and yelling, perhaps between his brother and himself, and then he was in the park. And it was raining.

 

He didn’t have a coat. Or anything to keep the slight chill that was creeping up his spine from taking over. Looking over himself, he briefly wondered why he had run to the park in his state; black trousers and a very light button down. He wasn’t even wearing shoes. Surely he would get sick if he stayed out here much longer. Yet he made no move to leave.

 

The rain kept falling and he kept getting wet and he kept not caring.

 

Bringing his knees up to his chin, he wrapped his arms around them, resting his forehead on his arms. He was suddenly very cold, but he wasn’t going to move. If they wanted him home they had to come get him. He wasn’t going until they came for him.

 

“You’re going to get sick,” he heard a voice say, and suddenly the rain was no longer hitting him.

 

Sherlock lifted his head to see a slightly older boy, bright blue eyes watching him with what seemed to be concern from under blonde bangs that were growing wetter by the second. Lifting his eyes further he noticed the boy was holding his umbrella over Sherlock’s head, not seeming to care much that he was now the one getting wet.

 

Sherlock said nothing, but carefully evaluated the boy before him. He was wearing ripped and faded jeans and an oversized red windbreaker that kept out the rain and seemed to be on the warmer side. Sherlock guessed he was from a less well off family, which is why he didn’t have a clue who he was. The blue scarf around his neck was the only new thing he seemed to have, which suggest to Sherlock that perhaps it had been a recent gift. Being only five years old himself, the boy couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, but Sherlock was tall for his age, and the boy did seem a bit short. He was still giving Sherlock a friendly smile, though, and he was still holding his umbrella over the younger boy’s head as if he hadn’t even considered the fact he was being rained on. 

 

Sherlock huffed and looked away, hoping the boy would get the hint and leave.

 

Instead, he was surprised when he heard someone sit down beside him and drop something warm over his shoulders. Turning to look at the boy, sure that shock was written over his face, he was stunned to see that the boy was now only in a casual striped shirt, his windbreaker having been draped around Sherlock. Hesitantly, Sherlock reached up and felt the windbreaker that rested on him, confused. Nobody had ever done anything like that for him before.

 

“My name is John,” the boy, John, told him, staring off past the leaves into the grey clouds, a calm smile still on his face.

 

Sherlock didn’t want to respond. He wanted to give the boy his jacket back, demand he take his umbrella (which he had leant against the tree) and leave. But instead he found himself replying, “Sherlock.”

 

“That’s an odd name. I like it.”

 

Sherlock didn’t know how to reply. In all his experiences with other children, he had found other people to be stupid and ignorant and annoying. This one, this John, was baffling. He didn’t leave Sherlock alone in the rain. He didn’t make fun of his name. He didn’t even ask questions about why he was out here alone or why he didn’t have shoes on. And he had given him his jacket without even knowing the younger boy.

 

“You’re shivering. How long have you been out here?” John asked after a few moments of silence.

 

Sherlock blinked, not realizing that he had been staring at John, or that John had turned his gaze from the sky to the cold boy. Sherlock looked down at his hands at the statement, and sure enough, his hands were trembling and his skin looked a little blue.

 

“I don’t know.” And he wasn’t lying. He had no idea how long it had been since he had turned up in the park and it had started raining, to the time John had shown up.

 

“Well, I don’t have much to offer. But maybe this will help a bit,” John said, and before Sherlock could tell him to stop, John had taken the scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around Sherlock’s. It was much too big on the younger boy, but it radiated warmth and Sherlock couldn’t help but bury his face in it a bit. It smelt like John, he realized, a bit of soap, vanilla, and something earthy. 

 

Sherlock stopped shivering.

 

They didn’t say much after that, sitting in quiet companionship under the tree as the rain fell. After a long while, the heavy downfall turned into a light sprinkle until the rain stopped all together. The clouds parted and the sun weakly pushed through, attempting to warm the waterlogged earth.

 

“Guess that’s my cue. It’s been nice sitting with you, Sherlock,” John told him as he stood up, stretching. He closed the umbrella and shook it off. Sherlock stood after him, making to take off the borrowed items, but John held up a hand.

 

“Keep them.”

 

He didn’t give Sherlock a reason, only a smile as he turned and walked away, and Sherlock only watched, one hand still buried in the scarf.

 

He never met John again, no matter how many times he returned to the park. But he wore the windbreaker all the time, even when it didn’t rain, and eventually he grew out of it. But he treasured the scarf, taking such good care of it that it was still in pristine condition years later, when he would finally meet John again.

 

 

~}-{~

 

 

Sherlock adjusts the scarf one last time, hearing John stand up to put on his coat. Discreetly, Sherlock lifts the edge of the scarf to nose. If he tries, he can still smell the scent of vanilla, soap, and that earthy tone that he had the first time he wore it. 

 

But then John’s ready and Sherlock straightens up, and the two leave, off to solve the next case.

 

 

~}-{~

 

 

When he thinks Sherlock isn’t looking, John smiles. He’d recognize his scarf anywhere, especially when it’s on the same boy he gave it to all those years ago.


End file.
